Mental health worker fired after asking for better abortion awareness

By Charlotte Fantelli

A woman has been fired after discussing mental health implications of abortion with family planning colleagues.

Margaret Forrester a mental health worker, passed around a booklet warning of the physical and psychological damage some women suffer after an abortion, to members of the family planning team at the health center where she worked.

According to a story in The Telegraph, Ms Forrester 40, felt that the NHS was ‘failing to give patients information about the risks and other options to terminating a pregnancy.’

The situation started on Nov 2 2010, when Ms Forrester, in her role as a psychological wellbeing practitioner in Westminster, central London, had an informal discussion about the physical and psychological implications to some women during and post abortion.

She ‘was worried that women seeking medical advice for a 'crisis pregnancy' were routinely offered abortions without consideration of other options, and with no meaningful discussion of the risks.’

'As an example of the patients I was concerned about, I showed my colleague a copy of a pamphlet called Forsaken, which details five true stories of women who had an abortion, were traumatised and were not informed of the potential consequences or alternatives.'

Ms Forrester was suspended from her duties at Central North West London Mental Health Trust one week later when her manager found out.

While fighting her own case through a lengthy six-month disciplinary process, Ms Forrester became ill. At the end of this process last month, she was found guilty of “gross professional misconduct” and sacked.

She has spoken out over the 'scandal' of the pro-abortion culture in the medical profession and claimed that it were her 'Christian beliefs' that made her 'an easy target' for 'politically correct' bureaucrats in the NHS.

'The NHS has a pro-abortion stance which comes from a secular religion. It is a belief system which is aggressively anti-Christian,' she said.

'There is a conspiracy of silence in this country on the issue of abortion,' she said.

'If we are professionals, we really must listen to patient experiences.'

According to The Telegraph ‘the ultimate reason for her dismissal was her refusal to work in a new role in a different mental health team, to which she was transferred as a disciplinary measure.’ It is reported that Ms Forrester accepted the job verbally, but claimed she was give insufficient information and lacked training.

In an attempt to remove 'gross professional misconduct' from her employment record, Ms Forrester is considering taking her case through an employment tribunal.

'The day I was fired I felt like a sunflower drooping. I remember saying, 'I’m finished’. It has been very difficult.'

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust 'totally refuted' any suggestion that it had unfairly dismissed Ms Forrester or attempted to “silence” her.

‘The sole reason for her dismissal was that she 'refused to come to work' in the new role that she had previously agreed to take, and for which training was in place, it said in a statement.’

Ms Forrester was dismissed because she ‘failed to undertake the duties of her post, she failed to follow a reasonable management instruction to attend work and her absence from work was unauthorised’.

I personally covered the subject of abortion at length in issue three of Uncovered magazine and the research and findings were horrific.

The culture of giving women a number and sending them to a clinic to ‘get rid’ of a pregnancy without proper information and counseling is very dangerous. It is my personal opinion that Ms Forrester would not have been doing her job if she had not brought this into discussion, regardless of her moral beliefs or religion.

If abortion wasn’t such big business for many maybe we could all start considering women as people – not numbers?